Link Bar IE 6 (XP)

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Having Surfed long and hard over the years i have many favourites. My “Links Bar” has enough for two so i have thought “how about having two link’s bars” but am unable to create such a thing. any clues out there as to how i would go about showing 2 bars across the top of my screen instead of just the one?

Robert

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Hi Robert:
Why don’t you add two or more folders to your links bar & divide up the links into these two folders. When you click the folders, they will drop down & show the links inside. As I recall, the links folder is inside the Favorites folder (at least it is on mine).

I don’t know how to add another toolbar (although I’m sure there’s a way because I added the Google toolbar–but that was automatic), but I thought the above might help.
Cheers,

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Ok so to make this thing work a little better i can go into windows explorer find the favourites folder and populate it with either new folders or how about all the folders that i already have within favourites, just drag them into it! This way i can see all the folders. although in reality it only is saving one click not two!

Robert

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For the folders with shortcuts to be visible on the IE Links toolbar they need to be moved/copied to the FavoritesLinks folder. In WIN XP this folder is normally located at C:Documents and SettingsUserNameFavoritesLinks. The attached graphic shows what the Links toolbar will look like with subfolders. Like you said, this really only saves one click, but at least the links are a little more accessible. I’m not aware of any way to create a custom toolbar in IE, there may be 3rd-party utilities or add-ins with this capability.

HTH

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Hi Robert–
Like Phil , I added a Google Toolbar to the IE toolbar, and a Teoma bar also (Teoma is a Search Engine developed by Rutgers last couple years–not as many hits but very precise and high quality hits):
Teoma and Download the Teoma Search Bar

I am going to try to list a few downloads that will allow you to add search/link capabilities on your desktop or taskbar–not increasing your links folder, but definitely giving you additional taskbar or toolbaresque functionality on your desktop I have run accross and use. I’ll try to context them a little. All of them have proven to be a) bug free Work with XP c) Run in the background without impacting your CPU time, browsing speed or computer resourses or memory significantly):

1) Dave’s Quick Search Deskbar (2.7Final) (Melts into your Taskbar/Launches Searches from Windows Explorer Taskbar)

2) Google Search Tool on Your Desktop 2.5

3) Organize the Links Toolbar

4) Clean Up IE With Tweak IE

5) Customize Your IE Toolbar

6)Download Favorite’s Home Page–View and Printout your Favorites as Webpage

7) Download Google Toolbar/Has Been Huge Help to Me

Hope some of these might help. Appreciate Phil’s tip.

defrag

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Thankyou people your tips are most helpful! i have added the extra folders to the link bar and will give the google bar a work out as well.

Robert

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a “cheaper” solution I use is to rename all the shortcuts on my links bar to 2 or 3 letter acronyms of the site, eg “Goo” for google, “Az” for amazon.com, etc. That way I can fit 15-20 links on the standard links bar..

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Mark–
Thanks for tip.

defrag

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yes I have already done that one, including changing the icons so they are more repersentative. ie the red flying Kangaroo for the QANTAS web site. i have a folder within “My Pictures called Icon that i save them into, i then richt click on the icon on the link bar select properties then change icon, navigate to the relevent folder and choose the icon of my desire. click ok and apply to step back out and it should be done. (IE6)

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Hi Mark:
Another idea is to slide the Links toolbar all the way to the right until all that shows is a double chevron. Then you can just use it as a drop down menu. So many ideas…so little time.

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yeah, I use this too, I have a bunch of links visible, and a bunch more on the drop-down..

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I’ve got a slightly different approach that’s worked extremely well for me since IE 4 (and I’m still using it with XP):

Get QuickSearch – available as one of the IE power toys from Microsoft.
Do a search from the home page of your favorite search engines (search for a single word if possible, like “test”).
On the results page, copy what’s in IE’s Address bar.
Run QuickSearch (it installs on IE’s Links bar), create a new shortcut (e.g., t for Teoma) and select Custom for search type, then paste the URL from your clipboard. Finally, edit the URL to replace your “test” phrase with “%s” (without quotes).
You can test before saving, but don’t forget to click Save in the main QuickSearch window or your changes will be lost.

As an example, I took this search from Teoma:
http://s.teoma.com/search?q=Sandisk+driver…amp;search.y=16

and created a Quick Search entry for the shortcut “t”:
http://s.teoma.com/search?q=%s&qcat=1&qsrc=0

Now when I want to search on Teoma, I just type the search right into the Address Bar, prefixing the search with “t” like this:

t Word Excel “Woody’s Office Watch”

QuickSearch handles special characters (like the quotes and spaces), and sends the request to the search engine. I’ve got these set up for Google, MSKB (by Q number), and a bunch of others. Also works from the Address bar in the Windows Task bar, in case I don’t have the browser running.

Advanced Tip: If the search engine has a long URL (query string), try removing some parameters (like the click coordinates in the example for Teoma). If it’s still too long and QuickSearch’s UI won’t accept it, don’t worry. Enter a temporary phrase and save it. Then edit the Registry entry for your shortcut under

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerSearchUrl

There’s a key for each shortcut. Find yours and edit the Default value. The entry in the registry can be much longer than the UI allows, and the search still works fine.

HTH

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